Stories from Tagore
Grannie went on: Then the princess took her little husband away in great
distress, and built a large palace with seven wings, and began to
cherish her husband with great care.
I jumped up and down in my bed and clutched at the bolster more tightly
than ever and said: "What then?"
Grannie continued: The little boy went to school and learnt many lessons
from his teachers, and as he grew up his class-fellows began to ask him:
"Who is that beautiful lady living with you in the palace with the seven
wings?"
The Brahman's son was eager to know who she was. He could only remember
how one day he had been gathering sticks and a great disturbance arose.
But all that was so long ago that he had no clear recollection.
Four or five years passed in this way. His companions always asked him:
"Who is that beautiful lady in the palace with the seven wings?" And the
Brahman's son would come back from school and sadly tell the princess:
"My school companions always ask me who is that beautiful lady in the
palace with the seven wings, and I can give them no reply. Tell me, oh,
tell me, who you are!"
The princess said: "Let it pass to-day. I will tell you some other day."
And every day the Brahman's son would ask: "Who are you?" and the
princess would reply: "Let it pass to-day. I will tell you some other
day." In this manner four or five more years passed away.
At last the Brahman's son became very impatient and said: "If you do not
tell me to-day who you are, O beautiful lady, I will leave this palace
with the seven wings." Then the princess said: "I will certainly tell
you to-morrow."
Next day the Brahman's son, as soon as he came home from school, said:
"Now, tell me who you are." The princess said: "To-night I will tell you
after supper, when you are in bed."
The Brahman's son said: "Very well"; and he began to count the hours in
expectation of the night. And the princess, on her side, spread white
flowers over the golden bed, and lighted a gold lamp with fragrant oil,
and adorned her hair, and dressed herself in a beautiful robe of blue,
and began to count the hours in expectation of the night.
That evening when her husband, the Brahman's son, had finished his meal,
too excited almost to eat, and had gone to the golden bed in the
bedchamber strewn with flowers, he said to himself: "To-night I shall
surely know who this beautiful lady is in the palace with the seven
wings."
The princess took for her food that which was left over by her husband,
and slowly entered the bedchamber. She had to answer that night the
question, who was the beautiful lady that lived in the palace with the
seven wings. And as she went up to the bed to tell him she found a
serpent had crept out of the flowers and had bitten the Brahman's son.
Her boy-husband was lying on the bed of flowers, with face pale in
death.
My heart suddenly ceased to throb, and I asked with choking voice: "What
then?"
Grannie said: "Then ..."
But what is the use of going on any further with the story? It would
only lead on to what was more and more impossible. The boy of seven did
not know that, if there were some "What then?" after death, no
grandmother of a grandmother could tell us all about it.
But the child's faith never admits defeat, and it would snatch at the
mantle of death itself to turn him back. It would be outrageous for him
to think that such a story of one teacherless evening could so suddenly
come to a stop. Therefore the grandmother had to call back her story
from the ever-shut chamber of the great End, but she does it so simply:
it is merely by floating the dead body on a banana stem on the river,
and having some incantations read by a magician. But in that rainy night
and in the dim light of a lamp death loses all its horror in the mind of
the boy, and seems nothing more than a deep slumber of a single night.
When the story ends the tired eyelids are weighed down with sleep. Thus
it is that we send the little body of the child floating on the back of
sleep over the still water of time, and then in the morning read a few
verses of incantation to restore him to the world of life and light.
WORDS TO BE STUDIED
=sovereign.= This word is taken directly from the French language. It
is connected with the Latin "supremus."
=blinks.= Many English words are made up from the supposed sound or
motion to be represented. Compare _to splash_, _to plump_, _to
quack_, _to throb_, _to swish_.
=suspicious.= From the Latin word "spicere," to look. Compare
_auspicious_, _respect_, _inspect_, _aspect._
=unsophisticated.= This word comes from the Greek "sophistes," meaning
a sophist, that is to say, one who makes a pretence of being wise.
Unsophisticated means one who makes no pretence to be learned.
=umbrella.= This word has come into English from the Italian language.
"Umbra" in Latin means "shade" and Ombrella in Italian means
"little shade."
=extravagant.= From the Latin root "vag," meaning to wander. The word
means "wandering outside" and so "going beyond bounds." Compare
_vagrant_, _vagabond_, _vague._
=explanation.= From the Latin "planus," meaning plain. Compare
_explanatory_, _explain_, _plain_, _plane._
=incantation.= From the Latin "cantare," to chant, something chanted
over a person.
=magician.= From the Greek "magus," an astrologer. Compare _magic_,
_the Magi_, _magical._
THE CHILD'S RETURN
IV
THE CHILD'S RETURN
I
Raicharan was twelve years old when he came as a servant to his master's
house. He belonged to the same caste as his master and was given his
master's little son to nurse. As time went on the boy left Raicharan's
arms to go to school. From school he went on to college, and after
college he entered the judicial service. Always, until he married,
Raicharan was his sole attendant.
But when a mistress came into the house, Raicharan found two masters
instead of one. All his former influence passed to the new mistress.
This was compensated by a fresh arrival. Anukul had a son born to him
and Raicharan by his unsparing attentions soon got a complete hold over
the child. He used to toss him up in his arms, call to him in absurd
baby language, put his face close to the baby's and draw it away again
with a laugh.
Presently the child was able to crawl and cross the doorway. When
Raicharan went to catch him, he would scream with mischievous laughter
and make for safety. Raicharan was amazed at the profound skill and
exact judgment the baby showed when pursued. He would say to his
mistress with a look of awe and mystery: "Your son will be a judge some
day."
New wonders came in their turn. When the baby began to toddle, that was
to Raicharan an epoch in human history. When he called his father Ba-ba
and his mother Ma-ma and Raicharan Chan-na, then Raicharan's ecstasy
knew no bounds. He went out to tell the news to all the world.
After a while Raicharan was asked to show his ingenuity in other ways.
He had, for instance, to play the part of a horse, holding the reins
between his teeth and prancing with his feet. He had also to wrestle
with his little charge; and if he could not, by a wrestler's trick, fall
on his back defeated at the end a great outcry was certain.
About this time Anukul was transferred to a district on the banks of the
Padma. On his way through Calcutta he bought his son a little go-cart.
He bought him also a yellow satin waistcoat, a gold-laced cap, and some
gold bracelets and anklets. Raicharan was wont to take these out and put
them on his little charge, with ceremonial pride, whenever they went for
a walk.
Then came the rainy season and day after day the rain poured down in
torrents. The hungry river, like an enormous serpent, swallowed down
terraces, villages, cornfields, and covered with its flood the tall
grasses and wild casuarinas on the sandbanks. From time to time there
was a deep thud as the river-banks crumbled. The unceasing roar of the
main current could be heard from far away. Masses of foam, carried
swiftly past, proved to the eye the swiftness of the stream.
One afternoon the rain cleared. It was cloudy, but cool and bright.
Raicharan's little despot did not want to stay in on such a fine
afternoon. His lordship climbed into the go-cart. Raicharan, between the
shafts, dragged him slowly along till he reached the rice-fields on the
banks of the river. There was no one in the fields and no boat on the
stream. Across the water, on the farther side, the clouds were rifted in
the west. The silent ceremonial of the setting sun was revealed in all
its glowing splendour. In the midst of that stillness the child, all of
a sudden, pointed with his finger in front of him and cried: "Chan-na!
Pitty fow."
Close by on a mud-flat stood a large _Kadamba_ tree in full flower. My
lord, the baby, looked at it with greedy eyes and Raicharan knew his
meaning. Only a short time before he had made, out of these very flower
balls, a small go-cart; and the child had been so entirely happy
dragging it about with a string, that for the whole day Raicharan was
not asked to put on the reins at all. He was promoted from a horse into
a groom.
But Raicharan had no wish that evening to go splashing knee-deep through
the mud to reach the flowers. So he quickly pointed his finger in the
opposite direction, calling out: "Look, baby, look! Look at the bird."
And with all sorts of curious noises he pushed the go-cart rapidly away
from the tree.
But a child, destined to be a judge, cannot be put off so easily. And
besides, there was at the time nothing to attract his eyes. And you
cannot keep up for ever the pretence of an imaginary bird.
The little Master's mind was made up, and Raicharan was at his wits'
end. "Very well, baby," he said at last, "you sit still in the cart, and
I'll go and get you the pretty flower. Only mind you don't go near the
water."
As he said this, he made his legs bare to the knee, and waded through
the oozing mud towards the tree.
The moment Raicharan had gone, his little Master's thoughts went off at
racing speed to the forbidden water. The baby saw the river rushing by,
splashing and gurgling as it went. It seemed as though the disobedient
wavelets themselves were running away from some greater Raicharan with
the laughter of a thousand children. At the sight of their mischief, the
heart of the human child grew excited and restless. He got down
stealthily from the go-cart and toddled off towards the river. On his
way he picked up a small stick and leant over the bank of the stream
pretending to fish. The mischievous fairies of the river with their
mysterious voices seemed inviting him into their play-house.
Raicharan had plucked a handful of flowers from the tree and was
carrying them back in the end of his cloth, with his face wreathed in
smiles. But when he reached the go-cart there was no one there. He
looked on all sides and there was no one there. He looked back at the
cart and there was no one there.
In that first terrible moment his blood froze within him. Before his
eyes the whole universe swam round like a dark mist. From the depth of
his broken heart he gave one piercing cry: "Master, Master, little
Master."
But no voice answered "Chan-na." No child laughed mischievously back: no
scream of baby delight welcomed his return. Only the river ran on with
its splashing, gurgling noise as before,--as though it knew nothing at
all and had no time to attend to such a tiny human event as the death
of a child.
As the evening passed by Raicharan's mistress became very anxious. She
sent men out on all sides to search. They went with lanterns in their
hands and reached at last the banks of the Padma. There they found